Need help with Mechguard

I've been having some major problems with mechguard as of late. He runs the standard 6x chimeltas with 2 vendettas and 2 russ' with ccs in a chimera (he varies his last tank, it switches between russ variants and manticore & he usually runs marbo).

I've tried a couple things, and the best I can manage is a tie against him. I've been trying as blood angels with the following for a list.

My strategy has been to form an AV13 wall and slowly advance, trying to pick off chimeras and kill the dudes inside to advance. The drop pod comes down in the back and pops as much tank as they can. The lascannons from the tac squads sat in the back and shot at targets of opportunity while holding objectives. I ended up with a tie on this game, but it felt like a loss. I lost my entire armor column to his, and had to fall back to take my home objective (marbo blew them off it).

I need some advice to take down the wall of chimeras and then kill the dudes inside. Nothing I've been able to do has worked (tried 3-4 lists, that one up there was the last one that did the best against him).

I have looked at dropping vindis and taking annihilator preds to free up some points to apply at other places.

Your main focus should be getting more long ranged anti tank into your army, and killing off all the AV12 in his army before it can get close with you. How attached are you to the BA codex? Personally, I'd suggest Vanilla or Wolves as being slightly stronger in this area.

This one's got a flipping ton of shots going downrange each turn, but still has some decent melta and mobile elements. The plasma cannons are more useful against heavy infantry, but you could drop the HKMs on the predators to upgrade them to lascannons if you prefer. As a general-purpose list though, I'd suggest keeping the plasma cannons.

This one is pretty well the same thing, but Space Wolf style. The wolf guard and combi-meltas get spread around the rest of the army as needed, focusing the combi-meltas on the Wolf Scouts and Grey Hunters - it's not a decision you gotta make until deployment though, so it's fairly flexible.

Try running your Librarian with Fear of Darkness instead of Blood Lance. Remember that he's completely ignoring his leadership issues to load up on dakka! A Whirlwind is good, too...he wants to move his Chimeras 12" and them jump out for a few extra inches of range, which leaves him incredibly vulnerable to template fire.

Or you could bring a second Drop Pod unit; the Sternguard will be more effective if you can first spend a couple turns craking transports open. How about losing a Vindicator for a Podded Dreadnought with extra armor? Drop that puppy by his lines and have it use smoke instead of shooting--he'll probably spend all of his Turn 1 firepower on it, as it's a threat he cannot ignore. Alternatively (or simultaneously), place the Pod & Dread where it'll block his mechanized advance. Mech Guard are prone to getting bottled up and those meltavet squads are useless at range.

Outflanking Scouts is a good idea, too. Don't let him hold his home objective with some tiny little squad while everything else bum rushes you!

I think probably the best anti-armor unit the BA can field (for cheap) is an assault squad with 2 meltas, and a Sgt. with a Power fist. Meltas are the bane of IG. You can DoA everyone with a reasonable chance of success for a rear/side armor shot. Even if you don't get within 6", Meltas can still cause some damage on the flanks of those tanks. People generally assume that the IG are uncomfortable up close, which I think isn't true. You just have to dictate when they get close and that's when the problems start. Descending Blood Angels with Meltas can provide that early hit.

I like podded up Sternguard, though 10 meltas may be a bit of overkill. You could just change them to combi-meltas and save a few points in addition to making them useful for shooting up infantry. Although it's neat, I've always thought Techmarines to be a waste. I like Land Speeders for long range anti-tank work, and they fit into that fast Blood Angels style. Typhoons are the obvious choice, but the MM/HF tornado might be a good idea too.

The techmarine was there to fill points, as the land speeder he was supposed to be didn't show up in the mail until the day of the game. All of the meltas in the sternguard squad were of the combi variety, as you can only take 2 actual meltaguns with them. Unfortuneately I don't own enough jump pack marines to try an actual DoA list, so I'm going to have to try a gunline approach.

I think probably the best anti-armor unit the BA can field (for cheap) is an assault squad with 2 meltas, and a Sgt. with a Power fist. Meltas are the bane of IG. You can DoA everyone with a reasonable chance of success for a rear/side armor shot.

I must disagree here. Mech Guard players work a very restrictive set of assumptions but this advice is exactly what those assumptions are.

1. He wants to close with you as quickly as possible. Mech IG players have bet almost everything on tiny-ranged heavy flamers and meltaguns. Choosing to rush in yourself is giving him what he wants.

2. He wants you to bunch up; he'll tank-shock you into doing it if he has to. Russes and Chimera flamers both want your models to be packed together as tightly as possible to maximize the damage from these templates. DoA lists are pretty much a worst case scenario here; in fact, most Guard players are very happy to see lots of deepstrikers. We have the templates to inflict 100% casualties on low-average dice rolls.

3. He doesn't care about close combat, only about double-tapping his meltas. A Mech Guardsman's ideal scenario is having his Vets shoot your Marines, then letting you kill the Chimera, and then shooting you one more time before losing the unit. If you can pace your shooting to kill both the Chimera/Vendetta and its passengers in one go, you've cut his effectiveness in half.

4. He can't compete against a gunline. Against opponents that don't want to get point-blank, he'll be shooting almost nothing for two turns before his Chimeltas get close enough to be useful.

5. He must not get bottlenecked. If damaged/wrecked Chimeras choke off the clear paths around terrain then those meltaguns are useless for a long time...and Guardsmen in the open don't last long. (How much terrain do you play with? At least 25%?)

6. His leadership is terrible. Pinning weapons, indirect fire, anything that puts negatives on a morale test can easily ruin his day.

7. He cannot handle enemies with few/no vehicles or high-end elites. Consider that, from a melta's point of view (and a Vendetta's lascannon), a cheap Scout Marine is just as durable as a pricey Land Raider...maybe more so, thanks to cover saves. A quad-missile launcher Devastator squad will therefore be much more effective than a Vindicator tank...no one-shot kills, no 'crew shaken'!

@Intrepid : I think you've pretty much hit the nail on the head!
I played a mechguard army this weekend at 1750pts. 5 chimeras with vets a mix of plasma and melta. As well as a couple russ's and a vendetta!

I run a fairly balanced list (vanilla marines) and the saving grace was thus:
2 vindicators, and heres why:

like intrepid said in point 1! he wants to close with you as quickly as possible and the vindicators (one on wach corne facing inwards towards the centre of the board) was enough to make him want to creep forwards rather than full steam ahead! Its all about the psychological effects various units can have on your opponent.

Also like intrepid mentioned in point 5. bottle necking those guys will be an effective way of keeping them away. A way to temporarily do this would be to drop a drop-podded dread in the way of some chimeras advances. Admittadely the drop-pod will last a turn at best. but its still a turn those chimera are held up. What i did was move rhinos in the way of the chimera and then fire the vindicator at the chimera clip the rhino and wreck them both. Crafty but if somebody is going to play a list with that many melta weapons you have to get your kicks somehow.

More importantly however is make sure you can drop the vendetta/valkyrie as fast as possible. 3 TL/LC is not funny and it carries a guard squad usually. One less to worry about.